So...
Yeah
I didn’t drop off the planet. I’ve actually been very busy with BTS. — If you want to take that as bingeing out on JK and Jimin’s music videos, go right ahead. 😎1
BTS
In all seriousness, I’ve been hard at work on behind-the-scenes practices for reading, note-taking, PKM, and writing workflow. I’ve taken a couple courses, and I’m going to enroll in Bianca Pereira’s PKM for Researchers Mentorship. That is quite an investment for me, but her Active Note-taking course was revelatory.
In order to tackle the problem of how to be a good human in the Anthropocene, in a systematic and intentional way, my writing here at Pose Ponder needs a solid ponder craft.
FFFs
I’ve also been continuing an all too massive effort2 to get my feeds, follows, and findings (FFFs) under control, after getting “drawn in” (overwhelmed) here on Substack. To this end, I’ve been re-tooling somewhat, realizing that I need a space/place, an “evergreen library” for things I save, whether I read them or not. Such a library is not the same as a read-it-later app, whether Readwise Reader or Omnivore, my erstwhile favorites. Since today’s technology is all about using AI as an assistant, I went looking for an AI-powered bookmarking tool, and I’ve landed on Fabric. I’ve been saving things there for a few weeks now, in hopes of building up enough data that the AI can start being useful. We’ll see. FFFs by their nature are serendipitous. All the Things keep blasting at you, riling up your curiosity antennae (mine are enormous), whether or not the subject line is remotely in the scope of what I’m presently supposed to be working on. I can’t shut it all off, though it’s tempting, if I want to be cognizant of what’s going on in the world. But the Incoming tends to all or nothing. Order must be imposed on this chaos.
Sojourners
More importantly, I’m hard at work on the Sojourners project, which is a community of practice for lifelong learners. One breakthrough was to decide that the project actually needs two communities, the first being a sort of gateway, which will live here on Substack. This community will be dedicated primarily to the arts and thought-craft of reading, to course-based learning for skills and content, to putting a basic knowledge system in place, to writing “first lines,” and to reflecting regularly on higher level priorities. A second community, which (it’s looking like) will be hosted on Discourse — a big rather old-fashioned forum platform3 — will be the place to sink deeper into specialty areas, including the role of travel in lifelong learning; techne and PKMs; research, writing, and action (practice) for the Anthropocene. It will provide a home for TLCs, the teachers, leaders, and coaches who are leading small groups for educational purposes outside mainstream educational institutions — plus their students and mentees. Both communities will be paid offerings. If you’re interested, you can put your email address on the Sojourners list. If you’d be interested in being a beta tester for either community, please send me a DM here on Substack. I don’t want to launch officially until we have at least five to ten active members and we’ve kicked the tires.
Taking a little time to reflect on why the Sojourners lift-off has been so delayed, I’ve had to admit that my project planning and follow through abilities are sorely lacking. Besides spending a lot of time writing here on Substack over the last year, and being “drawn in” to Substack’s ecosystem, and being continually fire-hosed by FFFs invading my attention zone, I’m just not great at project management.4 Put it down to being a former academic and “ideas” person now having to function in the real world, or what you will, I’ve taken a bit of time to up my game. Shout out to the Paperless Movement team and their ICOR methodology, which separates PKM and PPM from BKM and BPM. :o) I have long organized my notes, projects, and tasks around the dimensions of temporary (ephemeral) vs. permanent and messy vs. clean, but thanks to Tom and Paco, I’m clearer now on the need also to separate shallow from deep thinking, and to hone a robust business system for both knowledge and project management, separate from personal work. I’ve also re-discovered Tana!5
Last, I’ve start a rigorous diet and exercise regime, long overdue for a person who sits on the couch reading, or perched at a desk in front of a screen, for far (far) too many hours in a day, and who isn’t getting any younger. That’s taken a lot of TEA (time, energy, attention), too.
Re-think
As promised, I’ve been pondering how to re-organize things here at Pose Ponder to give me mental space, time, and energy both for writing better and for all these projects. It’s been tricky, because I needed to balance what was really going well with what needs to change, so as not to lose anything.6
Here’s where I’m at in the re-think.
I’ll keep the 3 weeks on, 1 week off cadence.
I’ll continue to “post” something every day (weekdays). However, daily “posts” will become smaller and more ephemeral jottings, and like as not they will show up on Substack’s Notes rather than as “posts.” Even if I do post, they’ll be web-only reads. Which means, they won’t go out by email. If you like the curated links and resources I’ve been sharing over past months, this is where you’ll now find them: in Notes and web-only posts.
Hint: if you want to follow these, you may want to get the Substack app.
My profile page will show all my Activity (Notes), Posts, and Likes.
I will reinstate the Weekly round-up, which will gather some of these shorter jottings into a weekly mailing. As always, you can opt in or out by “managing your subscription.”
For the real meat, the intention is to publish longer true essays less frequently than previously. These will go out by email and be permanently available on the Pose Ponder website. I hope to be able to write one per week at a minimum. These will be longer takes on books I’m reading, deeper engagements with a few Substackers whose work provokes me, assays of perennial topics I’m pondering through long term, and Pondercraft pieces on “method.” Pondercraft will dovetail into the Sojourners brand for lifelong learning.
So… Yeah. This is where I’ve been. These are the plans moving forward. May I find the strength to live up to the aspirations!7
As always, thank you for your readership and encouragement.
Actually, my favorite BTS videos by far are these two: the “ON” performance at Grand Central Station, and Park Ji-min’s “I Need U.” You can even read a little philosophical/ theological reflection I wrote about them a while back.
Disproportionate effort, really, for the benefits to be gained. But there it is. I daresay I am not alone in the struggle.
I looked long and hard at emerging community platforms that do it all, including Circle, Mighty Networks, and Heartbeat. I had even planned to use Heartbeat. I couldn’t bear the literal bells and whistles of Discord, Slack is too expensive (and the stream just keeps on flowing, flowing, flowing), and I gave up on Facebook (with its Groups) long ago. Discourse has the advantage of being open source and surprisingly full-featured. I’m hoping I can build an intentional and deliberate practicing community. Sojourners will eventually feature some formal courses, too, but all the essentials will be available for DIY lifelong learners in community — so courses will be optional and hosted elsewhere.
I’m actually much better at managing others than managing myself. Probably that comes from being a teacher all of my life.
Which I will use for keeping track of Sojourners projects (BKM, BPM), and which will in no way replace Heptabase as my PKM of choice. You can read founder Alan Chan’s vision here, which is what settled me a couple years ago.
“Not losing anything good” — this, I take it, is the central principle of conservatism. Philosophically, politically, pragmatically, I am a conservative and a radical (“to the root!”).
I’m well into Agnes Callard’s book on Aspiration. Uh, the style kills me, redolent as it is with the fumes of analytic philosophy. But the underlying philosophical dilemmas in human motivation and self-organization (self-cultivation, transformation) are directly relevant to aspiring lifelong learners and to aspiring good Anthropoi.
Gotta keep on keeping on!